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My name. Your space.

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but we’re up and running now.I hope you enjoy the new look and feel of www.queenrania.jo.

It might have my name on it, but this is your space too. It’s a place where you can contact me directly…give me feedback… post photos… blog back…debate ideas…be part of a global campaign…suggest things for me to do and see…learn more about education…exchange information…and take action on issues we both care about it.

Here is a very thoughtful article by a young college student at Duke named Jessica Kim. Note how she recommends civility and respect in dealing with highly confrontational issues involving human rights.

Okay, bear with me a little here. I recently heard that a three ring circus has tried to polarize folks in Jordan. It is true, they are a three ring circus. Apparently, they are three groups of men consisting of twelve each, who reportedly fashion themselves as 36 tribal leaders in Jordan. They purport to tell us that their people love them and will lead demonstrations against the Hashemites unless the Hashemites, in particular the queen, bow to their demands. Okay, lets take a look, what precisely are the demands of these so called "holy men?" What exactly do these "holy men" stand for? Well they stand for such despicable such things as honor killings and stonings. They support the murder of a young woman who has supposedly breaches her "Sharahic Lactose" by saying she wants to marry the one she loves and not one chosen for her. What else do they stand for? They stand for the vile perversion of the teachings of Mohammad, Moses and Abraham. Listen to these liars if you will, but we will soon learn that the 40% of Jordan they supposedly represent considers them little more than fools much like the "Emperor With No Clothes." :)

Good evening Her Majesty Rania,it's a pleasure to write you, I haven't things to suggest you, but my daughter is a teenager and every time I have to find a new way to understand her. First of all it's necessary to think with another point of view with young people, I've decided to talk to her among music and art. At first it wasn't easy, then I appasioneted to the rap music and the street art and I could enter to my daughter world. Now I can undestand her silent and I can talk to her about what happen in our country,news or bad events. The young need a guide, but with prudence, we have to consider that they live their life not ours. I hope to have the possibility to write to Her Majesty again. Yours Faithfully Eliana Rossi

Does anyone like games? For $100.00 US dollars, who can tell me who said this, when it was said, and where it was said?

From the first day I laid my eyes on you Aaron I knew that you would have my heart forever. I knew that I would never love another they way I loved you. Those words proved to be so true my love. How I have wished that we lived in a different world where people didn’t discriminate on the basis of ethnicity or religion. How I have wished that we lived in a world where a person’s conduct and his kindness were valued more highly than the color of his skin or his ethnicity. In that kind of world you and I might have had a chance to be together.

p.s. DW Duke - a wonderful analogy - but you forgot a major, labor intensive cycle in the process of farming - after a harvest the soil is turned upside down to bring fresh nutrients to the surface and plow under dead matter - that shaft - which was once critically important, and is now discarded to form the basis for nutrients in the future.

Its "President's Day" in the U.S. - (well about that time of year) - so perhaps some of these Thomas Jefferson quotes will inspire patriots...

However I do wish to remind you folks in Jordan you're fortunate to have progressive leaders with an eye towards education and creating a sustainable nation, region and planet. Were we to have a choice between either Bush or Obama and the leaders you have, we in the U.S. would be the lucky ones to swap leaders with Jordan for a few months. Under either Bush or Obama, you'd learn to read employment figures and housing foreclosure graphs turned upside down and made to look "wonderful".

...onward with some Jefferson quotes, starting with one from...

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

-- Albert Einstein

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden."

"That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part."

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.”

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”

“A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither”

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

"An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a
thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy
of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry."

"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a
house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of
mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of
professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."

"We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a
right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none
to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of
another country."

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction,
is the first and only object of good government."

"I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America,
the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of
criminal inquiry too."

"I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or
bad."

"When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count
to one hundred."

"I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless
office."

"I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another."

"Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is
jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival."

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that
his justice cannot sleep forever."

"If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be
otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and
fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield
nothing, and talk by the hour?"

"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of
every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with
conquest."

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it
goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars
of the world."

"It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own
good."

Ok - a little light laughter when North Africa is experiencing political earth quakes - if the Queen can make jokes like Letterman, I'll give this one a shot....

"After having dug to a depth of 10 feet
last year, an Egyptian scientist found
traces of copper wire dating back 100
years and came to the conclusion that
their ancestors already had a telephone
network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Egyptians, in
the weeks that followed, the Saudi
Government spent billions of dollars
digging at multiple sites, and their
archaeologist dug to a depth of 20
feet, and shortly thereafter, a story
ran in scientific journals all around
the world thataid:

"Saudi Scientists report finding of 200
year old copper wire, have concluded
that their ancestors already had an
advanced high-tech communications
network a hundred years earlier than
the Egyptians, Europeans or Americans."

A week later a local newspaper in Tel
Aviv reported the following: "After
digging as deep as 30 feet in his goat
pasture in Israel, Eric Schwartz, a
self-taught archaeologist and farmer
reported that he found absolutely
nothing. Eric has therefore concluded
that 300 years ago, his ancestors had
already gone wireless".

I am female and a Kenyan citizen, Yes your positive example of live does impact even those of us in Africa.

I have been taking care of my family(my mother and Brothers) now am 40 yrs old. Have always wanted to go back to school and complete my masters...however funding would not allow.
i just want to find out how many others are there like me? who still yearn to learn and yet have no chance?
Would your education=opportunity programme take this group into consideration?

Queen Rania. You are a true inspiration for so many. I live in the UK and have followed your paths and visions for your country for a long time now. My biological father moved out to Jordan when I was less than a year old. With past issues, I have always worried about his safety, but if he is still living in Jordan, under your rule, I know that he will be safe and have more opportunities as a result of your rule. Should he ever read this, his name is Nadel Matukh and I would love it if he was able to get in contact with me. Dan.